Table tennis is a relatively young sport: just like badminton, it emerged as a variation of traditional lawn tennis in the second half of the 19th century in England and it soon became very popular. According to various sources, the game was invented by British officers in South Africa or India, who played it with a row of books for what is now a net, using books or cigar box lids for rackets to hit a golf ball. Originally called whiff-whaff or gossima, today the game is also known as ping pong, an onomatopoeic word that imitates the sound of the ball when it strikes the table.
The Early Days of Table Tennis
By the beginning of the 20th century, table tennis was widely played in England as a leisure activity, and even a dress code was published for it: the clothes to be worn for ping pong were dark-colored and relatively loose to allow for free movement.
By 1901, the original golf ball was replaced with a ball made of celluloid material, and a modern version of the original cigar box lid – a wooden paddle with a rubber sheet attached to it – was also introduced. By 1910, the sport has spread to Europe as well and, a few years later, its popularity reached China, Japan and Korea as well, though the Russians banned it in their country, as they believed that playing table tennis is bad for the eyes.
The second decade of the 20th century saw a drop in the popularity of the game, but table tennis revived again during the 1920s in Wales and England, and this was also the decade when the name ping pong was registered as a trademark. This was the period of standardization as well: the rules were recorded in official documents and table tennis associations appeared not only in Britain, but in other European countries and in Asia as well.
The 50s brought about another innovation that contributed to the appearance of the paddle as we know it today: a sponge layer was added between the wooden paddle and the rubber cover on the hitting surface, making the game much faster and more spectacular, so much so that, after a while, the official table tennis organizations decided to slow the game by introducing certain technological modifications to the equipment.
Modern-Day History of Table Tennis – The Game as We Know It Today
The period between the 1920s and the 1980s saw the ascendance of table tennis to a sport played and loved all over the world, with the rules staying basically unchanged since the twenties. However, there have been some minor changes introduced to the game over time:
€the net was lowered;
€the rules today do not permit the server to hide the ball, thus preventing the server from obtaining an unfair advantage over the other player;
€protracted games are forbidden between defensive players.
Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988 and, after the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) decided to introduce several changes in order to make the game more enjoyable for television as well:
€The original balls were 38mm in diameter, but they were difficult to follow for the spectators, so they were replaced with larger balls, 40mm in diameter. This change not only made the ball easier to follow, but it also slowed down the game due to the higher air resistance of the ball;
€The ITTF also regulated the thickness of the sponge layer between the rubber layer and the wood of the paddles;
€Scoring was also changed from a 21-point system to an 11-point system to make the games more exciting to watch.
Table tennis is a living game, in constant evolution, and, nowadays, there are more and more variations of the game all over the world. Some of the variations use larger balls, often as big as 44mm instead of the standard 40mm, while other variations also introduce modifications to the structure of the paddle, by eliminating the sponge layer to make the game slower.
Final Thoughts
Table tennis is a sport where the physical and mental condition of the players is the most decisive factor: the rules of table tennis include the technical specifications of the equipment used by the players, so ping pong does not allow technological innovations to give unfair advantage to one player or the other.
There are millions of people worldwide who love and play the game regularly. They love it for being an excellent way to relax, to tone the body and sooth the mind, to challenge your opponent and be challenged at the same time.
Buying a tennis table nowadays is a minor investment. If you are looking for a complex, yet very easy to learn physical activity to enjoy with your friends or your family, go get yourself a ping pong table!